Once again, Gilas Pilipinas will be pressed for time.
Monday evening, the Philippine Men’s National Basketball Team held its third practice in prepartion for the 2019 FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers’ 6th window. And for the first time, all 13 pool players outside of naturalized Filipino Andray Blatche was present.
“This is our longest practice so far. We completed the lineup today,” shared Gilas head coach Yeng Guiao.
“Of course, except Blatche who is definitely coming on Friday.”
Though Blatche will arrive on schedule, Guiao will only have 10 days to integrate the 6-foot-11 stretch big man into his system.
Though Gilas will leave for Qatar on February 16, Blatche will have to leave the country on February 11 as his mother team Tianjin Ronggang will have two games in the CBA — a home game against Fujian on February 13 and a road tilt against Shandong on the 15th. Blatche will arrive in Qatar on the 16th as well.
Andray Blatche averaged 11 points and 11 rebounds for Gilas Pilipinas during the first round of the WCQ
“Si Andray Blatche darating ng February 1 pero aalis ng February 11. During that time, we have to squeeze a lot of time playing together,” lamented Guiao as he looks to hold three practices a week starting next week.
Besides this, Gilas will only have a tune-up series against Alab Pilipinas to prepare against Qatar and Kazakhstan. Their planned friendly against Israel has apparently been scrapped due to logistics issues.
“Ang apprehension ko lang is we might not get enough tune-up games as we want. Then, we’ll try to play Alab in between and then sa Qatar na kami magkikita dahil babalik siya sa China,” added Guiao.
“We are really pressed for time to play other teams for tune-ups.
“After Alab kasi wala ng ibang tune-up. When we get to Qatar, we don’t want to play local teams because we are just going to get scouted. So I think we have to do everything here at paghandaan dito pa lang,” Guiao disclosed.
On the bright side, Guiao is impressed with how this batch of national team has formed chemistry with one another — which is definitely ahead of schedule.
